Introduction

Having a list of all x-ray transitions of the elements is quite useful, in particular when analysing x-ray fluorescence spectra.

This work was based on data from the PANalytical Epsilon 5 software, version 2.0J/ICSW 2.8 of Dec 7, 2010 with kernel PW5050. In this software, data on every transition’s energy and relative intensity was stored in a user-accessible format, as well as the edge energies for each element.

I continued improving the dataset, and included natural line width and fluorescence yield data from the works of Krause and Oliver (1979), and Krause (1979). I collated this data into two datasets (Ahmed 2014b, 2014a) which we will explore below.

Notation: IUPAC more stringent than Siegbahn

At this stage in the work, it gradually became untenable to keep using the Siegbahn notation for x-ray transitions, since it is both incomplete (not all transitions have labels) and slightly arbitrary (different authors use the same label for different transitions). So I decided to switch to the IUPAC notation, which offers a complete, coherent system. This required me to translate all the existing Siegbahn labels in my dataset into IUPAC ones. To do that, I needed a “translator”. Luckily I found a good start in table 10.11 of Lengyel, Ure, and Inczédy (1998), and from there it was not too hard to work out the corresponding IUPAC names of the remaining transitions in my dataset.

Table 1: IUPAC notation and corresponding Siegbahn notation

IUPAC

Siegbahn

IUPAC

Siegbahn

IUPAC

Siegbahn

\(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{L}_1\)

\(\mathrm{K}\alpha_3\)

\(\mathrm{L}_1\mathrm{M}_2\)

\(\mathrm{L}\beta_4\)

\(\mathrm{M}_1\mathrm{N}_3\)

\(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{L}_2\)

\(\mathrm{K}\alpha_2\)

\(\mathrm{L}_1\mathrm{M}_{2,3}\)

\(\mathrm{K}\beta_{3,4}\)

\(\mathrm{M}_2\mathrm{N}_4\)

\(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{L}_{2,3}\)

\(\mathrm{K}\alpha_{1,2}\)

\(\mathrm{L}_1\mathrm{M}_3\)

\(\mathrm{L}\beta_3\)

\(\mathrm{M}_3\mathrm{N}_1\)

\(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{L}_3\)

\(\mathrm{K}\alpha_1\)

\(\mathrm{L}_1\mathrm{M}_4\)

\(\mathrm{L}\beta_{10}\)

\(\mathrm{M}_3\mathrm{N}_4\)

\(\mathrm{M}\gamma_2\)

\(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{M}_2\)

\(\mathrm{K}\beta_3\)

\(\mathrm{L}_1\mathrm{M}_5\)

\(\mathrm{L}\beta_9\)

\(\mathrm{M}_3\mathrm{N}_5\)

\(\mathrm{M}\gamma_1\)

\(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{M}_{2,3}\)

\(\mathrm{K}\beta_{1,3}\)

\(\mathrm{L}_1\mathrm{N}_2\)

\(\mathrm{L}\gamma_2\)

\(\mathrm{M}_3\mathrm{O}_1\)

\(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{M}_3\)

\(\mathrm{K}\beta_1\)

\(\mathrm{L}_1\mathrm{N}_3\)

\(\mathrm{L}\gamma_3\)

\(\mathrm{M}_3\mathrm{O}_4\)

\(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{M}_{4,5}\)

\(\mathrm{K}\beta_5\)

\(\mathrm{L}_1\mathrm{N}_4\)

\(\mathrm{M}_3\mathrm{O}_5\)

\(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{N}_{2,3}\)

\(\mathrm{K}\beta_2\)

\(\mathrm{L}_1\mathrm{N}_5\)

\(\mathrm{L}\gamma_{11}\)

\(\mathrm{M}_{4,5}\mathrm{N}_{2,3}\)

\(\mathrm{M}\zeta_{1,2}\)

\(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{N}_{4,5}\)

\(\mathrm{K}\beta_4\)

\(\mathrm{L}_1\mathrm{O}_2\)

\(\mathrm{L}\gamma^\prime_4\)

\(\mathrm{M}_4\mathrm{N}_{2,3}\)

\(\mathrm{M}\zeta_1\)

\(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{O}_{2}\)

\(\mathrm{K}\delta_2\)

\(\mathrm{L}_1\mathrm{O}_3\)

\(\mathrm{L}\gamma_4\)

\(\mathrm{M}_4\mathrm{N}_3\)

\(\mathrm{K}\mathrm{O}_{3}\)

\(\mathrm{K}\delta_1\)

\(\mathrm{L}_2\mathrm{M}_1\)

\(\mathrm{L}\eta\)

\(\mathrm{M}_4\mathrm{N}_6\)

\(\mathrm{M}\beta_1\)

\(\mathrm{L}_2\mathrm{M}_3\)

\(\mathrm{L}\beta_{17}\)

\(\mathrm{M}_5\mathrm{N}_3\)

\(\mathrm{M}\zeta_2\)

\(\mathrm{L}_2\mathrm{M}_4\)

\(\mathrm{L}\beta_1\)

\(\mathrm{M}_5\mathrm{N}_6\)

\(\mathrm{M}\alpha_2\)

\(\mathrm{L}_2\mathrm{N}_1\)

\(\mathrm{L}\gamma_5\)

\(\mathrm{M}_5\mathrm{N}_{6,7}\)

\(\mathrm{M}\alpha_{1,2}\)

\(\mathrm{L}_2\mathrm{N}_4\)

\(\mathrm{L}\gamma_1\)

\(\mathrm{M}_5\mathrm{N}_7\)

\(\mathrm{M}\alpha_1\)

\(\mathrm{L}_2\mathrm{N}_{6,7}\)

\(\mathrm{L}\nu\)

\(\mathrm{L}_2\mathrm{O}_1\)

\(\mathrm{L}\gamma_8\)

\(\mathrm{L}_2\mathrm{O}_4\)

\(\mathrm{L}\gamma_6\)

\(\mathrm{L}_3\mathrm{M}_1\)

\(\mathrm{L}\ell\)

\(\mathrm{L}_3\mathrm{M}_2\)

\(\mathrm{L}t\)

\(\mathrm{L}_3\mathrm{M}_3\)

\(\mathrm{L}s\)

\(\mathrm{L}_3\mathrm{M}_4\)

\(\mathrm{L}\alpha_2\)

\(\mathrm{L}_3\mathrm{M}_{4,5}\)

\(\mathrm{L}\alpha_{1,2}\)

\(\mathrm{L}_3\mathrm{M}_5\)

\(\mathrm{L}\alpha_1\)

\(\mathrm{L}_3\mathrm{N}_1\)

\(\mathrm{L}\beta_6\)

\(\mathrm{L}_3\mathrm{N}_4\)

\(\mathrm{L}\beta_{15}\)

\(\mathrm{L}_3\mathrm{N}_5\)

\(\mathrm{L}\beta_2\)

\(\mathrm{L}_3\mathrm{N}_{6,7}\)

\(\mathrm{L}\beta^\prime_{6,7}\)

\(\mathrm{L}_3\mathrm{N}_{6,7}\)

\(\mathrm{L}u\)

\(\mathrm{L}_3\mathrm{O}_1\)

\(\mathrm{L}\beta_7\)

\(\mathrm{L}_3\mathrm{O}_{4,5}\)

\(\mathrm{L}\beta_5\)

Line energies

Figure 1: Transition energy vs Z.

Figure 2: Distribution of the transition series.

Figure 3: Natural width of the \(\mathrm{K}\alpha_1\) and \(\mathrm{K}\alpha_2\) lines.

Figure 5: \(\mathrm{K}\beta\) and \(\mathrm{K}\alpha\) relative intensities (in percent). This looks extra messy because most elements have more than one \(\mathrm{K}\beta\) or (in particular) more than one \(\mathrm{K}\alpha\) transition.